Brodus Clay on Debuting on Raw as a Babyface & WrestleMania 29 Removal

Brodus Clay was interviewed by LocalBozo. Here are some highlights from the interview.

Debuting on RAW as a babyface despite being a heel on NXT: “What had happened was, backstage I joke a lot. I’m always teasing and clowning around and laughing and in the locker room I tend to always have something to say. We’re always laughing and stuff and people would see that. And while we were working on the character, it was brought to my attention like ‘Why aren’t you doing that out there?’ And I was like ‘Well obviously, you wouldn’t let me.’ And looking at the lay of the land- Mark Henry was getting ready to come back and he was gonna be a monster. Kane was making his comeback and he was gonna be a monster. Big Show has a lot of monster tendencies. So I wanted to be different. I wanted to take a risk. I wanted to try something they hadn’t seen since Junkyard Dog, just bringing the kids back and dancing in the ring and just trying to do something a little bit different.

“Of course, the character evolves- the idea was to pull it back at some point, be more serious in the ring at times. But just bring the entertainment value back, bring the character back. So it was a risk and it could have been horrible but I think fans wanted something like that and families wanted something like that in terms of a character that’s fun and entertaining and makes everybody want to dance and get up. That’s part of what wrestling is all about, you know? The pageantry, the cool entrances, and pyro, and people being a part of it and wanting to be a part of it and so I was very excited to give them the opportunity. And looking at it and how things have turned out, I think it was a great decision.”

Being bumped off the WrestleMania 29 card: “Actually the way we were told was with the utmost class- as best you could in that situation. We were told in Gorilla [position] five minutes before we were supposed to go out. And for me personally, it was devastating. You know, we worked so hard – it was going to be a big night.

“But I took a different route in terms of expressing – I wanted to be positive. I thought about my fans and the kids and stuff. I can teach from this, we can learn from this. This is a great lesson in terms of life and it wasn’t an easy decision but I had put a Tweet out about like, ‘In life, sometimes you gotta get your heart broke to know what you love.’ And it got a huge response from the fans and then I said- I put another one out saying ’365 to redemption. We will get back. We will get our opportunity. We will work harder. We’ll put ourselves in a position where they can’t possibly cut us, due to time constraints.’ And it’s just kind of grown. And now I’m actually in day- I chronologize each day until Wrestlemania. We’re at day 24 today. I start out with positive words about how we’re gonna approach the day and focus on our goals. And it’s gotten a really big response from the fans.”